Better ways of combatting oil spills will be put in place with the introduction of the planned Gulf Central Incident Command Centre.
Details of the plan, by the Regional Clean Sea Organisation (Recso), were discussed yesterday during a meeting at the Burj Al Arab.
Incident Commands are run on an individual country basis, which experts say are impractical and leads to duplication of resources should a major oil spill occur.
Recso, which groups the major state-owned oil companies in the Gulf region, also includes a number of private oil companies.
Its chairman, Khamis Juma Bu Amim, who is also vice-president of the Dubai Petroleum Company, said Dubai could play host to the command centre.
Our vision for Recsos future is to have a centralised Gulf Incident Command, whose sole purpose is to fight oil spills across the Gulf.
The members will be from across the GCC, mostly oil companies who are already members of our group. This would allow us to maximise the resources available within the region in terms of equipment and manpower, he said.
Recsos plan calls for dividing the Gulf area into four zones, each with its own equipment under one command unit regularly conducting training exercises, and a support base in Dubai run by the Recso Secretariat.
It also seeks to cut through red tape by involving senior-level officials in the different oil companies to respond to crises more swiftly.
The scheme also aims to include other regional organisations, such as the Marine Emergency Mutual Aid Centre.
We need to do regular drills to test our ability in dealing with a big oil spill. The idea is to do the clean-up swiftly and effectively, and avoid the need to bring in help from outside, which would cost a lot of money, said Nick Glover, crisis management team leader at the General Secretariat for the Supreme Petroleum Council in Abu Dhabi.
Joint command becomes a nightmare if theres no structure, Bu Amim said. The idea behind a central command centre is to facilitate swift action and rapid movement.
The damage
Dh5,142: The price of clean up per tonne
- Every tonne of oil spilled costs about $1,400 (Dh5,142) to clean up, say experts.
- The International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Ltd says that 84 per cent of all accidental oil spills are smaller than seven tonnes.
- During the last 30 years, the number of large spills (700 tonnes or more) has decreased significantly. Big accidents still do happen. In the Gulf, where most countries depend on sea water to feed their desalination facilities, an oil spill could prove to be disastrous, experts say.
Gulf News
